Chapter 3 – Lost in Translation

SPOV

That fire was back to burning in my belly and all I wanted to do was bite the woman in front of me, but the fear over what happened the last time I did that with the man Eric-er had stolen his clothes from made me hold back.

You’d think I’d be more hesitant over wanting to bite her at all.

Weird ass dream.

I knew he couldn’t understand me and I still couldn’t understand every part of my dream after the sex – the sex I could absolutely understand – so it wasn’t surprising when he cocked his head like a schnauzer hearing a whistle at my question. But instead of feeling that strange compulsion again – that for some reason I wanted to attribute to him, but couldn’t explain why – he held out his hand for me to take. When I did, he pulled me closer to the woman so I could watch as he leaned down and slowly worked the side of her neck with his tongue, all the while staring into my eyes.

Breathing felt weird in this dream too, like I could pick apart the different molecules in every inhale. But for some reason watching him got me all hot and bothered and I ended up panting like I was Maxine Fortenberry, chasing the ice cream truck down the road in the dead of summer.

His pointy teeth made another appearance and mine seemed to be attached to his because out they came again. And then I gasped in a breath and held it when he gently pierced her skin with them.

She moaned.

I moaned.

He moaned.

We were a bunch of moaners.

His cheeks hollowed as he pulled her blood into his mouth and the scent of it was driving me insane in my dream of insanity, so when he pulled away after one swallow and pulled me closer to her, I couldn’t resist doing the same.

And then the same thing happened all over again.

While still muted and foggy, I was sure I could sense her feelings. She was still a little frightened and a whole lotta turned on, but she was also annoyed because she’d been enjoying Eric-er’s attention and wanted it again.

And because this was the land of insane-believe, I felt a possessive fury sweep through me and growled in warning against her skin.

Now who’s the schnauzer?

He was mine. I didn’t know how or why. It didn’t even have anything to do with our earlier sex-a-thon, but I felt it to my dream core.

But the feelings I sensed from her were much easier to handle than the man’s thoughts of dying, so I continued to drink her chocolate syrup blood because it was finally squelching the fire inside my body.

Well, there was another fire building, but it would take a Viking vampire’s hose to put it out.

And leading me to believe he really could read my thoughts, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and began rubbing his body against mine. It only added to the experience and I continued to drink until he pulled my head away and kissed me, with our tongues now sharing the flavor left behind.

“You have done well, my child,” he murmured when he finally pulled away. “Now watch.”

He pulled his body away from mine and moved back towards the woman I was already calling ‘Barbara’ in my head.

As in Barbara Hershey.

He tilted her head and licked over his wound, with the blood flow quickly staunching to a stop. He then pulled back and pierced his fingertip on one of his pointed teeth and rubbed the blood over her wounds, turning her head yet again so I could see the two puncture marks disappearing from her skin.

“We must heal our prey to avoid detection.”

I heard something that sounded like ‘vroom’ and ‘frost’ and a bunch of other gibberish-to-me mixed in, so I had no clue what he was trying to tell me verbally. But his actions led me to believe he was showing me how to make our dream bites disappear.

Was this really something I would need to know to carry over into my next weird ass dream?

Maybe I would turn into An American Werewolf in Stockholm in the next one?

Christ, I hoped not. I was just glad I’d taken the time to shave everywhere I would want to be shaved earlier that day and it carried over into my dream.

I’d hate to spend dream eternity as a stubbly vampire.

I’d also learned to appreciate the little things in life, even in my dreams.

EPOV

Her hunger was still present but not nearly as debilitating as it had been. I’d thought to let her drain the woman completely, but she had a remarkable level of control for a newborn and when her body’s needs turned sexual, I saw no reason to not reward her with my affection for doing so well. Feeding and sex were closely linked for our kind, but I would never force her to bend to my will.

However, I would gladly entertain her whenever she wished.

I hadn’t expected to feel so possessive over her, but because she was my child I supposed it was to be expected. But I hadn’t enjoyed watching her touch another man and hoped her agreement to feed from the woman was indicative of her preference.

For feeding.

I already knew very well she preferred a male lover.

And she’d felt nothing but pleasure interlaced with a little hostility while feeding from the woman, but it too quickly abated when I took her back into my arms.

So perhaps my child was mimicking my possessive feelings as her sire?

I couldn’t be sure. I’d certainly never felt that way towards my own Maker, but our circumstances were different. And I would make sure they would remain that way for all of eternity, with her experiences being the day to my impossibly dark night.

Yes. Fate had been kind by bringing me her.

I was still on alert for the human’s chirping guard, seeking out its master, so I didn’t want to spend any longer than necessary in the woman’s presence. I needed to figure out where we would shelter for the day and hoped to come across somewhere I could acquire a sword. I was a warrior even as a human and I would not leave us undefended. I would teach my child how to swing a sword as well and together we would fight any and all who came at us.

But first we needed to be rid of the human.

I didn’t know what other powers her guard possessed, so removing her from our location seemed the most prudent. It didn’t seem to be able to fly since it hadn’t come after us and we would be impossible to trace by land since I’d flown her there. Perhaps by returning her to her previous location it would be enough to keep it at bay, so with that thought I commanded Soo-key once more to stay and took the woman back to the village by air.

When I returned I found her sitting in the grass, tossing a strange object up into the air and catching it again as she said, “Barbara must have dropped her cell phone.” And then holding the object still in one hand, she ran her fingertip over the front of it, causing it to light up as she said, “There’s a signal…I wonder…”

I moved to sit beside her, wondering what kind of magical device she held in her hand and watching as she tapped her finger over it before holding it to her ear.

“Hello?”

I heard a man’s voice coming from the small object and wondered if it was powered by a pixie trapped inside. My Maker had told me of such things, but I’d never come across anything but Weres and had learned early on to not believe everything he said.

I’d learned the hard way.

But what would she need with a pixie?

SPOV

“Niall?” I asked. I shouldn’t have been so surprised hearing his voice since I’d dialed his number, so I laughed adding, “I guess now you’re in my dream too!”

“SOOKIE?” he shouted, enough for me to hold the phone away from my ear. And because my dream was odd in every sense of the word, I could hear him just fine when I held it away from me as he asked, “Where are you? I’ve been worried sick!”

“You have?” I asked, thinking it was strange for him to be so worried about me in my dream.

“Of course I have!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been missing for three days! When we came in and found the room empty, we thought something awful must have happened to you when they stole the Viking’s body.”

“When who stole the body?” I asked and then decided to put dream Niall at ease by adding, “Nobody stole anything. Eric-er is right here with me.”

There’s was a long pause before he finally asked, “You have the Viking’s body? Why Sookie?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “I guess I fell asleep right as he woke up and then he turned into a vampire. He turned me into one too, so here we are and I can’t understand a lick of what he says.”

But I definitely understood other things his tongue did to me. Licking, among them.

“Sookie?” Niall asked, sounding concerned. “Where are you, dear. I want to come and get you.”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “We flew here.”

“How did you fly without a passport?” he asked. “You left all of your things behind.”

“Eric-er can fly,” I answered, knowing I sounded insane, but what the hell.

It was my dream.

“Can you look around and describe to me what you see? A street sign perhaps? Or a storefront?”

“I’m smack dab in the middle of nowhere, Niall,” I laughed. “Quit worrying! I’m dreaming. You’re probably going to wake me up any second and then I’ll blush to the high heavens we even had this conversation even though you won’t know about any of it.”

Even Dream Me couldn’t admit to Niall the raunchy things I’d done with my Viking vampire lover.

Just…no.

“Sookie,” he said more sternly, making Eric-er growl softly at my side hearing it. So I pet his arm hoping it would soothe him and then I felt a little worried myself, hearing Niall softly add, “Sweetheart, I think perhaps your disease has spread more rapidly than we could have anticipated and it is what’s making you delusional. Please, just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

Was I delusional?

Had I wandered off and now I was God knows where, imagining I’d been pillaged by a Viking?

I’d never get into heaven that way.

Feeling my panic set in, I turned to Eric-er and said, “Say something.”

“What?” Niall asked. “What do you want me to say?”

“Not you,” I hissed and poked Eric-er in his chest, saying, “You. You say something.”

It didn’t matter to me one way or the other what he said because I wouldn’t understand it anyway, but at least if Niall heard his voice then I knew I wasn’t delusional.

I was just dreaming.

But Eric-er was back to doing his Schnauzer impersonation, so I tapped his chest and said, “Eric-er,” before tapping on my own chest and giving him the universal ‘Say my name now goddammit!’ expression.

EPOV

I was admittedly fascinated by my child’s magical box, but I could feel her rising panic and not knowing why, I gave her what I thought she wanted and said, “Soo-key.”

Did she worry I would forget her name?

“Sookie!” the trapped pixie shouted from the small magic box. “Who’s there with you?”

I took the object from her hand and gently shook it, but felt no rattling from within. Nor did I smell any other scents coming from it besides my child’s and the human’s, but perhaps the pixie’s magic kept it from my senses.

“The Viking,” my child sighed, with a strong wave of relief sweeping through her.

So I repeated her name again, saying, “Soo-key,” while looking into her eyes to let her know I would not forget.

She should not worry over such things.

“Sookie, please! Tell me where you are so I can come to you!”

The pixie sounded worried as well and I wondered how they knew one another, but my attention was drawn back to my child feeling her rising frustration when she said, “I. Don’t. Know! I’m dreaming! But maybe if I wish really hard you’ll just pop over here with me!”

She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate before slowly opening them again and saying, “Looks like you’re gonna have to sprout wings or a magic wand because my dream wisher is broken.”

Her pixie seemed to sigh before he said, “You say you don’t understand the man you’re with. Is he Swedish?”

“Was Sweden formed a thousand years ago?” she asked. “You’re the scholar here. I’m just going along for the ride on your coattails, so you tell me.”

“It…it can’t be…I shouldn’t even entertain the idea…” he muttered and no other sound came from him for a long moment, but I felt my eyes go wide when he asked, “Can you understand me?”

Pixies could communicate in any language?

Her magic box was not only fascinating, but convenient, so I smiled and replied, “Yes.”